The Geography Blog focusing on all things geography: human, physical, technical, space, news, and geopolitics. Also known as Geographic Travels with Catholicgauze!
Written by a former National Geographic employee who also proudly served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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Sunday, January 06, 2008

Culture as a Military Weapon

I know there is more to military geography than cultural terrain but understanding culture has proven to be an important section of today's military counterinsurgency operations.

The blog JIOX has a link to the long paper Culture: The New Key Terrain, Integrating Cultural Competence into Joint Intelligence Preparation of the Battlespace (PDF) by Major O. Kent Strader. The paper argues that it is possible to weaponize culture and understanding and exploiting culture will allow for better military operations. It is a long paper but the summary does a good job while using few words for those who do not have the time.